[dunkelheit]

Good summary. For me the triply demoralizing factor is that (at least where I work) performance reviews are hugely hypocritical. There are some officially stated rules but they don't describe what is actually happening. E.g. officially admitting that there is any kind of stack ranking is a big no-no, but there is now way a team leader can get away with "well, every one on my team has exceeded expectations this year, give them all raises". Or the term "exceeds expectations" itself - actual expectations of your boss play little role compared to the perceived importance of your work.

All of this is a kind of open secret, so the system is "fair" for some definition of fairness. Still, a novice will spend a couple of cycles to understand the unwritten rules of the game. At this point they will either start playing by the real rules or recoil in horror and suffer a blow to their motivation. Of course staying ignorant is also a possibility.